Residents' attitude toward tourism development: A sociocultural perspective

Abstract

Host population support for tourism development has attracted the attention of researchersin tourism studies. Given the importance of understanding local community support for tourismdevelopment, limitations in understanding their priority and lack of a socio-cultural model ofsupport for tourism, this study attempted to model locals' support for tourism development based onsocio-cultural factors in Malaysian Homestay program. Using extensive literature review, a tourismsupport model was proposed including several hypothesized paths. The proposed socio-culturalresearch framework predicted the impact of Islamic religiosity, locals' knowledge about tourism, intrinsic motivation factors and community attachment on locals support for tourism developmentthrough mediating variables of perceived socio-cultural benefits and costs in Malaysian Homestays., the model and paths were tested using structural equation modelling and partial least squarealgorithm (PLS-SEM) with the aid of SmartPLS software. Findings reveal that locals' support fortourism development in Homestay program is a function of perceived socio-cultural benefits andcosts perceived by local community and four independent variables of Islamic religiosity, knowledgeabout tourism, intrinsic motivations, and community attachment.